Books: The Maid of Maiden Lane
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Amelia E. Barr >> The Maid of Maiden Lane
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MY JORIS! My dear Friend:
'Tis scarce an hour since I received your letter, but I have read it
over four times. And whatever you desire, that also is my desire; and I
am deceived as much as you, if you think I do not love you as much as I
am loved by you. You know my heart, and from you I shall never hide it;
and I think if I were asleep, I should tell you how much I love you;
for, indeed, I often dream that I do so. Come, then, this very night as
soon as you think convenient. If my father is in a suitable temper it
will be well to speak plainly to him, and I am sure that my mother will
say in our favour all that is wise.
Our love, with no recognition but our own, has been so strangely sweet
that I could be content never to alter that condition; and yet I fear no
bond, and am ready to put it all to the trial. For if our love is not
such as will uphold an engagement, it will sink of itself; and if it is
true as we believe it to be, then it may last eternally. What more is to
say I will keep for your ear, for you are enough in my heart to know all
my thoughts, and to know better than I can tell you how dearly, how
constantly, how entirely I love you.
Yours forever, CORNELIA.
Without a pause, without an erasure this letter had transcribed itself
from Cornelia's heart to the small gilt-edged note paper; but she found
it a much more difficult thing to answer the request of Rem Van Ariens.
She was angry at him for putting her in such a dilemma. She thought that
she had made plain as possible to him the fact that she was pleased to
be a companion, a friend, a sister, if he so desired, but that love
between them was not to be thought of. She had told Arenta this many
times, and she had done so because she was certain Arenta would make
this position clear to her brother. And under ordinary circumstances
Arenta would have been frank and free enough with Rem, but while her own
marriage was such an important question she was not inclined to
embarrass or shadow its arrangements by suggesting things to Rem likely
to cause disagreements when she wished all to be harmonious and
cheerful. So Arenta had encouraged, rather than dashed, Rem's hopes, for
she did not doubt that Cornelia would finally undo very thoroughly what
she had done.
"A little love experience will be a good thing for Rem," she said to
herself--"it will make a man of him; and I do hope he has more self-
respect and courage than to die of her denial."
It is easy, then, to understand how Cornelia, relying on Arenta's
usually ready advice and confidences, was sure that Rem had accepted the
friendship that was all in her power to give him, and that this belief
gave to their intercourse a frank and kindly intimacy that it would not
otherwise have obtained. This state of things was desirable and
comfortable for Arenta, and Cornelia also had found a great satisfaction
in a friendship which she trusted had fully recognized and accepted its
limitations. Now, all these pleasant moderate emotions were stirred into
uncomfortable agitation by Rem's unlooked-for and unreasonable request.
She was hurt and agitated and withal a little sorry for Rem, and she was
also in a hurry, for the letter for Joris was waiting, as she wished to
send both by the same messenger. Finally she wrote the following words,
not noticing at the time, but remembering afterwards, what a singular
soul reluctance she experienced; how some uncertain presentiment, vague
and dark and drear, stifled her thoughts and tried to make her
understand, or at least pause. But alas! the doom that walks side by
side with us, never warns; it seems rather to stand sarcastic at our
ignorance, and to watch speculatively the cloud of trouble coming--
coming on purpose because we foolishly or carelessly call it to us.
MY DEAR AND HONOURED FRIEND:
Your letter has given me very great sorrow. You must have known for many
weeks, even months, that marriage between us was impossible. It has
always been so, it always will be so. Why could you not be content? We
have been so happy! So happy! and now you will end all. But Fortune,
though often cruel, cannot call back times that are past, and I shall
never forget our friendship. I grieve at your going away; I pray that
your absence may bring you some consolation. Do not, I beg you, attempt
to call on my father. Without explanations, I tell you very sincerely,
such a call will cause me great trouble; for you know well a girl must
trust somewhat to others' judgment in her disposal. It gives me more
pain than I can say to write in this mood, but necessity permits me no
kinder words. I want you to be sure that the wrench, the "No" here is
absolute. My dear friend, pity rather than blame me; and I will be so
unselfish as to hope you may not think so kindly of me as to be cruel to
yourself. Please to consider your letter as never written, it is the
greatest kindness you can do me; and, above all, I beg you will not take
my father into your confidence. With a sad sense of the pain my words
must cause you, I remain for all time your faithful friend and obedient
servant,
CORNELIA MORAN.
Then she rang for a lighted candle, and while waiting for its arrival
neatly folded her letters. Her white wax and seal were at hand, and she
delayed the servant until she had closed and addressed them.
"You will take Lieutenant Hyde's letter first," she said; "and make no
delay about it, for it is very important. Mr. Van Ariens' note you can
deliver as you return."
As soon as this business was quite out of her hands, she sank with a
happy sigh into a large comfortable chair; let her arms drop gently, and
closed her eyes to think over what she had done. She was quite
satisfied. She was sure that no length of reflection could have made her
decide differently. She had Hyde's letter in her bosom, and she pressed
her hand against it, and vowed to her heart that he was worthy of her
love, and that he only should have it. As for Rem, she had a decided
feeling of annoyance, almost of fear, as he entered her mind. She was
angry that he had chosen that day to urge his unwelcome suit, and thus
thrust his personality into Hyde's special hour.
"He always makes himself unwelcome," she thought, "he ever has the way
to come when he was least wanted; but Joris! Oh there is nothing I would
alter in him, even at the cost of a wish! JORIS! JORIS!" and she let the
dear name sweeten her lips, while the light of love brightened and
lengthened her eyes, and spread over her lovely face a blushing glow.
After a while she rose up and adorned herself for her lover's visit. And
when she entered the parlor Mrs. Moran looked at her with a little
wonder. For she had put on with her loveliest gown a kind of bewildering
prettiness. There was no cloud in her eyes, only a glow of soft dark
fire. Her soul was in her face, it spoke in her bright glances, her
sweet smiles, and her light step; it softened her speech to music, it
made her altogether so delightful that her mother thought "Fortune must
give her all she wishes, she is so charming."
The tea tray was brought in at five o'clock, but Doctor Moran had not
returned, and there was in both women's hearts a little sense of
disappointment. Mrs. Moran was wondering at his unusual delay, Cornelia
feared he would be too weary and perhaps, too much interested in other
matters to permit her lover to speak. "But even so," she thought, "Joris
can come again. To-night is not the only opportunity."
It was nearly seven o'clock when the doctor came, and Cornelia was sure
her lover would not be much behind that hour; but tea time was ever a
good time to her father, he was always amiable and gracious with a cup
in his hand, and the hour after it when his pipe kept him company, was
his best hour. She told her heart that things had fallen out better than
if she had planned them so; and she was so thoughtful for the weary
man's comfort, so attentive and so amusing, that he found it easy to
respond to the happy atmosphere surrounding him. He had a score of
pleasant things to tell about the fashionable exodus to Philadelphia,
about the handsome dresses that had been shown him, and the funny
household dilemmas that had been told him. And he was much pleased
because Harry De Lancey had been a great part of the day with him, and
was very eloquent indeed about the young man's good sense and good
disposition, and the unnecessary, and almost cruel, confiscation of
property his family had suffered, for their Tory principles.
And in the midst of the De Lancey lamentation, seven o'clock struck and
Cornelia began to listen for the shutting of the garden gate, and the
sound of Hyde's step upon the flagged walk. It did not come as soon as
she hoped it would, and the minutes went slowly on until eight struck.
Then the doctor was glooming and nodding, and waking up and saying a
word or two, and relapsing again into semi-unconsciousness. She felt
that the favourable hour had passed, and now the minutes went far too
quickly. Why did he net come? With her work in her hand-making laborious
stitches by a drawn thread--she sat listening with all her being. The
street itself was strangely silent, no one passed, and the fitful talk
at the fireside seemed full of fatality; she could feel the influence,
though she did not inquire of her heart what it was, of what it might
signify.
Half-past eight! She looked up and caught her mother's eyes, and the
trouble and question in them, and the needle going through the fine
muslin, seemed to go through her heart. At nine the watching became
unbearable. She said softly "I must go to bed. I am tired;" but she put
away with her usual neatness her work, and her spools of thread, her
thimble and her scissors. Her movement in the room roused the doctor
thoroughly. He stood up, stretched his arms outward and upward, and said
"he believed he had been sleeping, and must ask their pardon for his
indifference." And then he walked to the window and looking out added
"It is a lovely night but the moon looks like storm. Oh!"--and he turned
quickly with the exclamation--"I forgot to tell you that I heard a
strange report to-day, nothing less than that General Hyde returned on
the Mary Pell this morning, bringing with him a child."
"A child!" said Mrs. Moran.
"A girl, then, a little mite of a creature. Mrs. Davy told me the
Captain carried her in his arms to the carriage which took them to Hyde
Manor."
"And how should Mrs. Davy know?"
"The Davys live next door to the Pells, and the servants of one house
carried the news to the other house. She said the General sent to his
son's lodging to see if he was in town, but he was not. It was then only
eight o'clock in the morning."
"How unlikely such a story is! Do you believe it?"
"Ask to-morrow. As for me, I neither know nor care. That is the report.
Who can tell what the Hydes will do?"
Then Cornelia said a hasty "good-night" and went to her room. She was
sick at heart; she trembled, something in her life had lost its foot-
hold, and a sudden bewildering terror--she knew not how to explain--took
possession of her. For once she forgot her habitual order and neatness;
her pretty dress was thrown heedlessly across a chair, and she fell upon
her knees weeping, and yet she could not pray.
Still the very posture and the sweet sense of help and strength it
implied, brought her the power to take into consideration such
unexpected news, and such unexplained neglect on her lover's part,
"General Hyde has returned; that much I feel certain of," she thought,
"and Joris must have left Hyde Manor about the time his father reached
New York. Joris would take the river road, being the shortest, his
father would take the highway as the best for the carriage.
Consequently, they passed each other and did not know it. Then Joris has
been sent for, and it was right and natural that he should go--but oh,
he might have written!--ten words would have been enough--It was right
he should go--but he might have written!--he might have written!"--and
she buried her face in her pillow and wept bitterly. Alas! Alas! Love
wounds as cruelly when he fails, as when he strikes; and even when
Cornelia had outworn thought and feeling, and fallen into a sorrowful
sleep, she was conscious of this failure, and her soul sighed all night
long "He might have written!"
CHAPTER IX
MISDIRECTED LETTERS
The night so unhappy to Cornelia was very much more unhappy to Hyde. He
had sent his letter to her before eleven in the morning, and if Fortune
were kind to him, he expected an answer soon after leaving Madame
Jacobus. Her departure from New York depressed him very much. She had
been the good genius of his love, but he told himself that it had now
"grown to perfection, and could, he hoped, stand in its own strength."
Restlessly he watched the hours away, now blaming, now excusing, anon
dreaming of his coming bliss, then fidgeting and fearing disappointment
from being too forward in its demanding. When noon passed, and one
o'clock struck, he rang for some refreshment; for he guessed very
accurately the reason of delay.
"Cornelia has been visiting or shopping," he thought; "and if it were
visiting, no one would part with her until the last moment; so then if
she get home by dinner-time it is as much as I can expect. I may as well
eat, and then wait in what patience I can, another hour or two--yes, it
will be two hours. I will give her two hours--for she will be obliged to
serve others before me. Well, well, patience is my penance."
But in truth he expected the letter to be in advance of three o'clock.
"Twenty words will answer me," he thought; "yes, ten words; and she will
find or make the time to write them;" and between this hope and the
certainty of three o'clock, he worried the minutes away until three
struck. Then there was a knock at his door and he went hastily to answer
it. Balthazar stood there with the longed-for letter in his hand. He
felt first of all that he must be quite alone with it. So he turned the
key and then stood a moment to examine the outside. A letter from
Cornelia! It was a joy to see his own name written by her hand. He
kissed the superscription, and kissed the white seal, and sank into his
chair with a sigh of delight to read it.
In a few moments a change beyond all expression came over his face--
perplexity, anger, despair cruelly assailed him. It was evident that
some irreparable thing had ruined all his hopes. He was for some moments
dumb. He felt what he could not express, for a great calamity had opened
a chamber of feeling, which required new words to explain it. This
trance of grief was followed by passionate imprecations and reproaches,
wearing themselves away to an utter amazement and incredulity. He had
flung the letter to the floor, but he lifted it again and went over the
cruel words, forcing himself to read them slowly and aloud. Every period
was like a fresh sentence of death.
"'YOUR LETTER HAS GIVEN ME VERY GREAT SORROW;' let me die if that is not
what she says; 'VERY GREAT SORROW. YOU MUST HAVE KNOWN FOR WEEKS, EVEN
MONTHS, THAT MARRIAGE BETWEEN US WAS IMPOSSIBLE;' am I perfectly in my
senses? 'IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE;' why, 'tis heart treason
of the worst kind! Can I bear it? Can I bear it? Can I bear it? Oh
Cornelia! Cornelia! 'WE HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY.' Oh it is piteous, sad. So
young, so fair, so false! and she 'GRIEVES AT MY GOING AWAY,' and bids
me on 'NO ACCOUNT CALL ON HER FATHER'--and takes pains to tell me the
'NO IS ABSOLUTE'--and I am not to 'BLAME HER.' Oh this is the vilest
treachery! She might as well have played the coquette in speech as
writing. It is Rem Van Ariens who is at the bottom of it. May the devil
take the fellow! I shall need some heavenly power to keep my hands off
him. This is a grief beyond all griefs--I believed she loved me so
entirely. Fool! a thousand times fool! Have I not found all women of a
piece? Did not Molly Trefuses throw me over for a duke? and Sarah Talbot
tell me my love was only calf-love and had to be weaned? and Eliza Capel
regret that I was too young to guide a wife, and so marry a cabinet
minister old enough for her grandfather? Women are all just so, not a
cherry stone to choose between them--I will never wonder again at
anything a woman does--Was ever a lover so betrayed? Oh Cornelia! your
ink should have frozen in your pen, ere you wrote such words to me."
Thus his passionate grief and anger tortured him until midnight. Then he
had a high fever and a distracting headache, and, the physical torment
being the most insistent and distressing, he gave way before it. With
such agonizing tears as spring from despairing wounded love he threw
himself upon his bed, and his craving, suffering heart at length found
rest in sleep from the terrible egotism of its sorrow.
Never for one instant did he imagine this sorrow to be a mistaken and
quite unnecessary one. Indeed it was almost impossible for him to
conceive of a series of events, which though apparently accidental, had
a fatality more pronounced than anything that could have been arranged.
Not taking Rem Van Ariens seriously into his consideration, and not
fearing his rival in any way, it was beyond all his suspicions that Rem
should write to Cornelia in the same hour, and for the same purpose as
himself. He had no knowledge of Rem's intention to go to Boston, and
could not therefore imagine Cornelia "grieving" at any journey but his
own impending one to England. And that she should be forced by
circumstances to answer both Rem and himself in the same hour, and in
the very stress and hurry of her great love and anxiety should misdirect
the letters, were likelihoods outside his consciousness.
It was far otherwise with Rem. The moment he opened the letter brought
him by Cornelia's messenger, in that very moment he knew that it was NOT
his letter. He understood at once the position, and perceived that he
held in his hand an instrument, which if affairs went as he desired, was
likely to make trouble he could perchance turn to his own advantage. The
fate that had favoured him so far would doubtless go further--if he let
it alone. These thoughts sprang at once into his reflection, but were
barely entertained before nobler ones displaced them. As a Christian
gentleman he knew what he ought to do without cavil and without delay,
and he rose to follow the benignant justice of his conscience. Into this
obedience, however, there entered an hesitation of a second of time, and
that infinitesimal period was sufficient for his evil genius.
"Why will you meddle?" it asked. "This is a very dubious matter, and
common prudence suggests a little consideration. It will be far wiser to
let Hyde take the first step. If the letter he has received is so
worded, that he knows it is your letter, it is his place to make the
transfer--and he will be sure to do it. Why should you continue the
chase? let the favoured one look after his own affairs--being a lawyer,
you may well tell yourself, that it is not your interest to move the
question."
And he hesitated and then sat down, and as there is wickedness even in
hesitating about a wicked act, Rem easily drifted from the negative to
the positive of the crime contemplated.
"I had better keep it," he mused, "and see what will come of the
keeping. All things are fair in love and war"--a stupid and slanderous
assertion, as far as love is concerned, for love that is noble and true,
will not justify anything which Christian ethics do not justify.
He suffered in this decision, suffered in his own way quite as much as
Hyde did. Cornelia had been his dream from his youth up, and Hyde had
been his aversion from the moment he first saw him. The words were not
to seek with which he expressed himself, and they were such words as do
not bear repeating. But of all revelations, the revelation of grief is
the plainest. He saw clearly in that hour that Cornelia had never loved
him, that his hopes had always been vain, and he experienced all the
bitterness of being slighted and humbled for an enemy.
After a little while he remembered that Hyde might possibly do the thing
which he had resolved not to do. Involuntarily he did Hyde this justice,
and he said to himself, "if there is anything in the letter intended for
me, which determines its ownership, Hyde will bring it. He will
understand that I have the answer to his proposal, and demand it from
me--and whether I shall feel in a mood to give it to him, will depend on
the manner in which the demand is made. If he is in one of his lordly
ways he will get no satisfaction from me. I am not apt to give myself,
nor anything I have, away; in fact it will be best not to see him--if he
holds a letter of mine he may keep it. I know its tenor and I am not
eager to know the very words in which my lady says 'No.' HO! HO! HO!" he
laughed, "I will go to the Swamp; my scented rival in his perfumed
clothing, will hardly wish the smell of the tanning pits to come between
him and his gentility."
The thought of Hyde's probable visit and this way of escaping it made
him laugh again; but it was a laughter that had that something terrible
in it which makes the laughter of the insane and drunken and cruel,
worse than the bitterest lamentation. He felt a sudden haste to escape
himself, and seizing his hat walked rapidly to his father's office.
Peter looked up as he entered, and the question in his eyes hardly
needed the simple interrogatary--
"Well then?"
"It is 'No.' I shall go to Boston early in the morning. I wish to go
over the business with Blume and Otis, and to possess myself of all
particulars."
"I have just heard that General Hyde came back this morning. He is now
the Right Honourable the Earl of Hyde, and his son is, as you know, Lord
George Hyde. Has this made a difference?"
"It has not. Let us count up what is owing to us. After all there is a
certain good in gold."
"That is the truth. I am an old man and I have seen what altitudes the
want of gold can abase, and what impossible things it makes possible. In
any adversity gold can find friends."
"I shall count every half-penny after Blume and Otis."
"Be not too strict--too far east is west. You may lose all by demanding
all."
Then the two men spent several hours in going over their accounts, and
during this time no one called on Rem and he received no message. When
he returned home he found affairs just as he had left them. "So far
good," he thought, "I will let sleeping dogs lie. Why should I set them
baying about my affairs? I will not do it"--and with this determination
in his heart he fell asleep.
But Rem's sleep was the sleep of pure matter; his soul never knew the
expansion and enlightenment and discipline of the oracles that speak in
darkness. The winged dreams had no message or comfort for him, and he
took no counsel from his pillow. His sleep was the sleep of tired flesh
and blood, and heavy as lead. But the waking from such sleep--if there
is trouble to meet--is like being awakened with a blow. He leaped to his
feet, and the thought of his loss and the shame of it, and the horror of
the dishonourable thing he had done, assailed him with a brutal force
and swiftness. He was stunned by the suddenness and the inexorable
character of his trouble. And he told himself it was "best to run away
from what he could not fight." He had no fear of Hyde's interference so
early in the morning, and once in Boston all attacks would lose much of
their hostile virulence, by the mere influence of distance. He knew
these were cowardly thoughts, but when a man knows he is in the wrong,
he does not challenge his thoughts, he excuses them. And as soon as he
was well on the road to Boston, he even began to assume that Hyde, full
of the glory of his new position, would doubtless be well disposed to
let all old affairs drop quietly "and if so," he mused, "Cornelia will
not be so dainty, and I may get 'Yes' where I got 'No.'"
He was of course arguing from altogether wrong premises, for Hyde at
that hour was unconscious of his new dignity, and if he had been aware
of it, would have been indifferent to its small honour. He had spent a
miserable night, and a sense of almost intolerable desertion and injury
awoke with him. His soul had been in desolate places, wandering in
immense woods, vaguely apprehended as stretches of time before this
life. He had called the lost Cornelia through all their loneliness, and
answers faint as the faintest echo, had come back to that sense of
spiritual hearing attuned in other worlds than this. But sad as such
experience was, the sole effort had strengthened him. He was indeed in
better case mentally than physically.
"I must get into the fresh air," he said. "I am faint and weak. I must
have movement. I must see my mother. I will tell her everything." Then
he went to his mirror, and looked with a grim smile at its reflection.
"I have the face of a lover kicked out of doors," he continued
scornfully. He took but small pains with his toilet, and calling for
some breakfast sat down to eat it. Then for the first time in his life,
he was conscious of that soul sickness which turns from all physical
comfort; and of that singular obstruction in the throat which is the
heart's sob, and which would not suffer him to swallow.
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